


the original autistic

by fourshoesfrank



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Gen, Stimming, autistic lucifer morningstar (lucifer tv), dont attack me for this i was bored, either way lucifer isnt in hell, hyperverbal character, lucifer is lowkey a grandpa w technology, no beta we die like men, or maybe an au, takes place before s4 obv
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 04:08:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19099438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourshoesfrank/pseuds/fourshoesfrank
Summary: Lucifer spends all night on the Google and goes to Linda the next morning with an unusual inquiry.





	the original autistic

**Author's Note:**

> i have literally no idea where this would fit into the timeline.....bear with me lol. i saw lucifer’s devil form and right after i thought “oooohh....mad sexy” the next thing that entered my head was “red instead” and here we are! enjoy!

Linda had learned to just roll with Lucifer’s opening lines. Sometimes he walked into her office with a perfectly normal, human concern, and most of those times he had a relatively normal way of expressing said concern. Other times, it was very obvious that Linda was the devil’s therapist. For instance, the rant against God that Lucifer was currently on, which he had started over the phone with her while he was downstairs and was continuing in her office. Some people got angry at their religion’s deities, but very few of them referred to those deities as ‘dear old Dad’.

  
She was sure that most of her colleagues would have had Lucifer institutionalized by now, or at least requested to have somebody else oversee his therapy, but Linda actually liked Lucifer. She cared about him in a way that went beyond the professional concern that she had for all of her patients’ well-being.

  
"So naturally _that_ response from Amenadiel got me wondering about all sorts of things, and the Internet is a true gift because I simply googled my questions instead of tracking down one of my estranged siblings and annoying the answers out of them. Isn’t that nice? The Google told me that frogs do not have penises, but that’s off topic. So! I have recently learnt of a human condition known as autism spectrum disorder...” Wow, that was not what Linda had expected this rant to lead to, “...and I just had to know: do you think I have it?”

  
Lucifer had been speaking for the past seven minutes of the session, and another five minutes before that on the phone. Linda did a double take to make sure he was absolutely done talking before she switched into her Therapist Mode. She mulled his words over for a moment before she replied.

  
“Why don’t you tell me what’s led you to this conclusion, Lucifer,” Linda suggested. Honestly, he probably was autistic, the possibility was quite likely, but rich people tended to go diagnosis shopping when they wanted an easy way out of their problems. She needed to make sure that Lucifer’s question was legitimate.

  
He crossed his legs, cocked his head to the side, and said, “I would think that it’s fairly obvious, Doctor. I’ve got all the hallmarks of the condition, at least according to those sites on the web. I don’t know how I didn’t come to recognize this possibility earlier...Maybe Dad has a hand in this. It does sound like Him; giving all these autistic humans the opportunity to understand themselves, yet leaving me with nothing!”

  
Linda didn’t know that much about Lucifer’s father (God, her patient’s father was literally a _deity_ ) but she knew that parents in general, especially neglectful ones, hardly ever bothered to help their mentally ill or neurodivergent children. Linda nodded and made a note on her clipboard to look for anyone more experienced than herself in diagnosing neurodivergencies in adults. A third opinion would be good, right?

  
She said as much. “Lucifer, I do think it’s possible that you’re autistic, but you need to see a specialist. I can only give you professional confirmation, not a professional diagnosis.”

  
Lucifer seemed unfazed, which was confusing, considering that he’d just raised his voice during a session for the first time in...three weeks? Yeah, three weeks. Linda had been privately cherishing the quiet sessions, when they talked about what Lucifer called “daddy issues turned up to a hundred” and “survival tips for coping with four million year old guilt,” among other things. He was getting therapy, and Linda really thought he was progressing.

  
And now this. She was already dreading the paperwork of facilitating his diagnosis. If he even wanted one. A few of her other patients had decided not to pursue a formal diagnosis because of the cost. There were other reasons given, but holy crap, getting a diagnosis for anything was so expensive! And it took so long, too.

  
Linda explained all of this to Lucifer, who drank up the information like a sponge without cracking more than one lewd joke. He left her office after promising to think about her offer, and she promised to do a little research before officially giving her professional confirmation that he was autistic.

 

-

 

Linda was up for most of the night making a list of traits that Lucifer had that were considered signs of autism. So far, her list had items, and it was still growing.

  
Lucifer was very stubborn. If he thought something needed to get done, he would do it, no matter how much danger he put himself in. That wasn’t an official trait of autism that would help him get diagnosed (if he even wanted to go that route), but based on the websites and social media pages Linda had visited, stubbornness seemed to be common in autistic people. It was going on the list.

  
According to what he’d told her, Lucifer only knew how to behave in three extremely specific social situations: flirting in his nightclub, negotiating for a favor, and ordering his demons around. Okay, only two of those situations were possible on Earth, so Linda amended the list. Still, autistic trait right there, definitely. 

  
Lucifer didn’t know how to express his emotions, in part because he couldn’t identify them in the first place. Linda had been considering alexithymia as a possible explanation for this, before she learned that her patient was the literal, actual, honest-to-god devil. After that revelation, she’d been chalking it up to his lack of time spent on Earth, feeling things that weren’t anger and loneliness. Now, she felt foolish for not considering the fact that Lucifer could be the devil, and he could be autistic and have alexithymia. Linda added that to the list.

  
The most obvious trait was probably the fact that Lucifer was hyperverbal most of the time. Linda had figured that out long before he'd come into her office asking about autism. Hyperverbality wasn't an autism exclusive, but it definitely showed up more in autistic people. Lucifer never stopped talking, if he could help it. Everybody who knew him had gotten used to it and wrote him off as attention seeking, and yes, a need for attention probably played a factor in what he said. That wasn't why he said things all the time, though. He'd told Linda during a session that he just felt better when he wasn't keeping the words inside him. That was also why he always told the truth, because it was easier to let the words fall out of his mouth and be true than to spend time and effort concocting lie after lie. Linda typed out 'hyperverbal' on the list.

  
He took an intense interest in whatever fascinated him at any given moment. For a while, it had been piano, then vintage cars, then piano again, then there hadn't really been anything for a while, and it was back to piano at the moment. Lucifer mentioned his piano a _lot_. Linda was pretty sure that these were special interests (or hyperfixations, but she knew the latter was more commonly used for ADHD). Autistic people often tried to make a career out of their interests, and Lucifer played for LUX's patrons almost every night. Linda had a cousin who did almost the same thing, except his interest was percussion and he taught at a high school. Still, same idea, and absolutely a valid point. Lucifer's love for his piano was definitely going on the list.

This last item was really a no-brainer: Lucifer stimmed with his cufflinks. He was constantly rubbing them, twisting them, straightening them whenever they popped out of alignment. 'Stims with cufflinks' had a place on the list.

Linda pursed her lips and gave the Google Doc a quick once-over, not really looking for mistakes, but unsure of what to add next. She didn't know anything about Lucifer's senses or the way he processed sensory input, so she couldn't put that on the list. There were only so many traits that were signs of autism, and Linda couldn't think of any more that her patient had exhibited...

  
Wait.

  
Eye contact. Gosh, having problems with eye contact was one of the most stereotypical hallmarks (to use Lucifer's word) of autism. Linda didn't know why she hadn't thought of it earlier. Lucifer almost never looked people in the eye, preferring to shift his focus between their nose and their forehead; the only time that Linda had seen him actually directly meet someone's gaze was when he was working his devil mumbo jumbo on them. She typed that into the list and bolded the words.

  
Linda sat back from her laptop and reread through the list of Lucifer's autistic traits for the second and final time. She did some more thinking, but not too much. She was going to confirm with Lucifer that she thought he was autistic, and, if necessary, show him the list of reasons why.

 

-

 

“So that’s it? You just say yea to my query and off I go? Is that how this all works?”

  
Lucifer had a lot of questions about Linda’s professional confirmation, as was to be expected. She’d expected this curiosity. She hadn’t expected him to be so eager to hear her opinion.

  
Linda sighed. “Technically, no. But also, yes. It’s complicated, like anything related to mental health. Not that autism is a mental illness, because it’s not, but you guys usually get lumped in there anyway by doctors who don’t know any better. Okay!” Linda clasped her hands together. “I think you’re autistic.”

  
Lucifer smiled at her, surprisingly warmly. He looked so happy, so pleased with himself. Part of that happiness was probably a result of a supposed victory over his father, but hey. Lucifer’s therapy was all about baby steps, with some giant leaps in between sets of them. Linda smiled back and made another note on her paper.

  
“So, how do you feel about this?”

  
“I feel fantastic, Doctor. So I am the original autistic, hah! I’ll add that to my resume, right next to being the first entity to ever get kicked out of the house,” Lucifer joked. Or didn’t joke. Linda had never actually seen his resume, and she wouldn’t put it past him to put achievements like those on it.

  
Well, he was taking it...well. Good. Very good. That was to be expected, of course, because he was the one who had asked for her opinion in the first place. Linda was just happy to help another patient understand themself a little better.

  
“Doctor,” Lucifer began, “is a professional diagnosis absolutely necessary? I mean, from what I’ve read on the Google, the process is painfully slow and fraught with incompetent medical professionals. I can still say I’m autistic even if I haven’t got the little slip of paper to wave around, right?”

  
“Yes, but—“

  
“Oh, Father, why are there so many ‘buts’ and ‘ifs’ with this process?” Lucifer exclaimed, mirroring the frustration that Linda had felt every time she helped out another patient with this.

  
“You can say that you’re autistic, yes. I mean, you always tell the truth, right? Why stop now? However, if you try to get accommodations for your sensory or social needs, any establishment that isn’t affiliated with yourself has the right to ignore your requests. So, Lucifer, knowing what you know now, do you want to pursue a full diagnosis?”  
To be honest, Linda didn’t think he would agree. Lucifer hated bureaucracy, and there was no better place to find that than in a hospital. It wasn’t the least bit surprising to Linda when Lucifer shook his head and told her that he would be fine.

  
“After all, I’ve made it this far relatively unscathed, haven’t I?”

  
They both chuckled at that. “Yes,” Linda agreed, “relatively unscathed is a good way to put it.” She leaned forward a bit in her chair. “But we’re here to talk about the parts that _are_ scathed.”

  
“Ah, yes, of course, Doctor.”

**Author's Note:**

> as you can see, lucifer is in that limbo that so many autistic people (ESPECIALLY those assigned female at birth and those of color) find themselves in, where they have a professional affirmation that they’re autistic but not a professional diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. 
> 
> hope you liked this!! please comment and/or kudos!


End file.
